Page:Phelps - Essays on Russian Novelists.djvu/66

 life: his intense democratic sympathies, and his devotion to the highest ideals in Art. When the young painter forsakes poverty and sincerity for wealth and popularity, he steadily degenerates as an artist and eventually loses his soul. The ending of the story, with the disappearance of the portrait, is remarkably clever. The brief tale called "The Cloak" or "The Overcoat" has great significance in the history of Russian fiction, for all Russian novelists have been more or less influenced by it. Its realism is so obviously and emphatically realistic that it becomes exaggeration, but this does not lessen its tremendous power: then suddenly at the very end, it leaves the ground, even the air, and soars away into the ether of Romance.

Although these stories were translated into English by Miss Hapgood over twenty years ago, they have never had any vogue among English-speaking people, and indeed they have produced very little impression anywhere outside of Russia. This is a misfortune for the world, for Gogol was assuredly one of the great literary geniuses of the nineteenth century, and he richly repays attentive reading. In Russia he has been appreciated, immensely respected and admired, from the day that he published his first book; but his lack of reputation abroad is indicated by the remark of Mr. Baring in 1910, "the work of Gogol may be